Roadsides, railroads, fields, sandy and gravelly banks, and disturbed sites including vacant lots, gravel pits, and filled land. Native to the prairies and beyond, west of the Great Lakes. Adventive eastward and first collected in Michigan 1901–1905 in Kent, Marquette, St. Clair, and Wayne Cos.

A very distinctive plant, often bushy-branched, with attractive yellow heads and very resinous, curly-looking phyllaries.